Dark Heart
by VanHelsings angel
Summary: Erik is so much the gentleman throughout the story, what happens when the cracks begin to show? Darkfic.


Disclaimer: The characters of Phantom are not mine. I just borrow them.

A/N: Right, well this one is kind of self explanatory. I wrote this when I should have been rehearsing in a drama performance :D. So, please R+R

Dark Heart

The girl turned and ran.

Her lonely hurried footsteps echoed far, far too loud in the almost silent streets. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, more so from fear than from exhaustion.

The whipping, icy wind slashed the tears which ran down Mirabelle's face into frigid tracks on her cheeks. But she did not care; all she wanted was to get _away_…

She almost tripped as the heel of her boot became caught up in the hem of her skirts, and she cursed the stupid amount of layers she was wearing.

Hoisting the skirts as best she could, Mirabelle dashed on. She did not have time to stop of to think.

A corner was coming up, and she darted down it into the darkness of another dingy little alley.

If she had reached her hands out, she could have brushed both walls with her fingers it was so narrow. Then the reality of what she had done hit her. She did not slow, and as she continued on, cursed herself at her blunder.

She did not want to be in a tiny, gloomy street at this time, she did not want to be snared in his web.

It would have made more sense for her to run onto the main streets, to be bathed in the bright lights of the gas lamps. However, here she was, God-knows-where, lost as a fish in a desert.

Another tear slipped down the Mira's flushed cheek as she whipped her head around. Now she was hearing things; hearing him following her. That was foolish though; no one heard him. Fewer ever saw him.

A small whimper escaped the girl's lips as the toe of her boot stuck in a gap of the cobblestones, and she almost fell face first into a pile of refuse thrown from a high window above her.

As she looked up to continue, there was the swoop and ripple of a black cloak, and a shadow materialised before her in the alleyway, seeming to be made of moonlight and night-dark.

A laugh of beautiful tenor broke forth from beneath the hood of the shadow's long cloak, and if the girl had not been so beyond terrified she would have been swayed by its splendour.

The shadow cut a majestic figure for something so terrifying, and Mirabelle gulped. It felt to her like being in the presence of royalty, one false move could bring the world down around your ears.

A stray shaft of light struck something stark white underneath the folds of dark material, and the girl sucked in her breath. Who was this strange creature who had decided to pursue her?

"Good evening, Mademoiselle," a deep, cultured voice reached her. The whisper was quiet, yet it carried effortlessly across the way to her. "It is a pleasure to be following you this night."

"What do you want from me?" she almost screeched at the shape, trying to sound brave. She only came off as grating. Mira looked down and saw the hands she held before her were shaking violently, as was the rest of her body.

She could imagine the mess she looked; red and blotchy from the icy night, blonde locks a mess. Evidently this spectre did not care.

"Oh, nothing you will give freely, I'm sure," the clear, male voice purred.

Her breathing quickened, she looked for an escape route, a door, anything, but the walls to either side of her were towering and bleakly empty.

Why had he picked her? She had been, admittedly quite boldly, walking home quietly from an engagement near the Opera House, and Mirabelle was almost nineteen now, she fel she did not need an escort; she was no longer a child.

It was then that Mirabelle noted someone had been following her.

The fear had taken its time to work its way into her bones, and now it was there she was wholly in its grip.

She, like almost every other Parisian had heard the stories of the Phantom at the Opera. She passed the tales off in the way of a colourful management combined with the enthusiasm of a children's story, as most respectable figures of society did.

The Phantom was becoming harder and harder to ignore, though, especially when a panicked mind was grasping at reasons why a shadow would follow you.

A light rain began to fall, and the girl looked up at the starless sky, veiled in gluggy grey clouds mournfully.

The cloaked figure turned its palms up to the rain and sighed contentedly. "Ah… one could not ask for a better stage on which to play out our performance."

"No! Please Monsieur, I beg you," she backed away from him slowly towards the mouth of the alley. "I am Mirabelle, the daughter of Barron La Trobe, he will give you what you wish, just leave me be!" she cried to him.

Now her eyes were dry; she did not have the breath to sob any longer. Mira's eyes darted left and right, searching, searching for a way out of his trap.

Another laugh from the shadow. The resonance was amazing, the voice easily as refined as that of a great singer and equally as powerful. "Ah, Mademoiselle, what does Erik care for social status? No, no, no. Tonight, it would not matter if you were the _queen_…"

The shadowy figure's cloak swirled across the tiny alley, and he was gone, the enclosed space still ringing with his mirth.

Mirabelle looked around for a few moments, then dashed back the way she had come. No time to think, just run.

The fine rain was filling the gutters quickly; her stockings and boots were soaked before she knew it.

The dark streets were almost empty, with the exception of a few late night individuals, gazing in gloomy shop windows, hand in hand with loved ones, huddled beneath umbrellas and rugged up in coats and scarfs.

Mirabelle began to slosh towards on such couple when a smooth voice whispered in her ear, making her jump:

"No Mirabelle, not that way. What do they care for the drenched child on the street?."

Mirabelle gasped and looked for the source of the voice, checking her right, then just to be sure, her left. She was sure there was no body beside her; she would have felt their approach. The young couple were nowhere near her, in fact their silhouettes where indistinct in the haze of the shower, and she stood alone in the centre of a deserted street.

"Hello?" she whispered, her head spinning and her knees shaking. The wet strands of her blonde hair stuck to the sides of her face, making her look like a drowned dog, pathetic in its aloneness.

An involuntary sob shook her tired, sopping frame. "Please, Monsieur, leave me be," she begged the night.

"But dear, that cannot be done. You are Erik's now." The voice was back, soft and enticing, unnervingly close.

What kind of demon was he to have the power to weave this magic? His voice was persuasive yet the mere presence of it struck dread into her.

There was the billowing of a long cloak in the shadows in doorways, stalking her silently through the draughty, rainy streets.

Mirabelle mustered the energy from the deepest corners of her being to run on, and still the omnipresent shadows pursued her.

"Please God, help me," she murmured tearfully.

There was a man standing on the corner up ahead, and Mirabelle almost sagged with relief. Perhaps he could help her, or point her in the direction of home…

He had his back to her, his long black cloak drawn tight around his body. Mirabelle only realised how very tall he was when she was a few paces from him.

"Monsieur…" The word had barely escaped her lips when she realised her mistake.

The man turned and glowered down at her, impossibly tall and imposing, his face covered in a strange white half mask.

With his hood thrown back, Mirabelle could now see his black hair and the jagged streak of his feral grin beneath the mask. His mismatched eyes were fierce and they burned with a strange fire.

He seemed oblivious to the rain drizzling down the exposed side of his face at the temple. Fine sprinklings of raindrops made his heavy black cloak appear as if it was scattered with crystals.

"Oh, Dear God, It's you!" Mirabelle cried, backing away.

"The Lord can't help you now Mirabelle. He doesn't see you," seeing the misshaped lips form words at all seemed terribly wrong; that such a glorious voice emitted from a being with a countenance so… ghost-like… was not right.

Mirabelle did not see where she was running any longer as she ploughed blindly along through the rain with a scream which could have shattered glass.

For what seemed like hours, there was nothing but her rasping breath, the slow, steady downpour, and his threatening visage haunting her. His reflection was in every window, his tread sounded down every street. On every corner, whether it was imagined or not, he stalked her.

Mirabelle passed a huge lamppost on a wide plinth, and there he crouched, cloak billowing; mask shining in the failing lamplight, like an imposing black bird of prey.

In his skeletal hands a thick coiling rope dangled menacingly.

"Run, pretty one, _run_!" he called to her, laughing maniacally as he took a immense leap from the dais, looking even more like a swooping raven closing in on its hapless prey.

Mirabelle did not hesitate to do as he said. The hope of getting home that night was slipping quickly away from her.

She splashed to a stop at yet another corner, and pushed the soaking hair from her eyes.

There, in the middle of the square, stood a bronze stature of a very grand man.

Mirabelle's pounding heart leapt at the sight. She was sure she had seen it before. In fact, from here she knew her household was not far.

Sobbing in relief, she exhaustedly raced on, encouraged by the familiarity of one thing in a world of darkness and fear.

The ghost must have sensed this change in her manner, for he was at her ear again.

"No doubt your family loves you, Mademoiselle. No matter; you belong to Erik now."

Who was this accursed Erik? Was he the creature in the white mask that chased her? Erik - was he the damned soul who had made a deal with devil?

"Never!" she whispered harshly, as again he materialised before her in a flutter of black cloak.

"Oh Mademoiselle, I should think so," the shadowy man paced towards her, the looped rope firmly in his grip.

Mirabelle blanched as she realised the rope was a noose. She cried nonsensical things to the advancing figure, promising things that were not hers to give, swearing allegiances far beyond her power to enforce.

She found her back up against an impossibly high wall. There would be no escape this time. The thrill of the chase, for the monster before her, had come to an end.

Mirabelle's eyes sought the dark sky, where no moon shone. It had been suffocated by clouds. The dark night was unforgiving.

"You resisted well, Mirabelle. But none of us can run forever."

He raised the noose in his hands.

Mirabelle's throat was tight, and through her terror, she found the sense to whimper one word.

"Please." The ghost was almost upon her, and was silent as the grave.

His long, thin arms lifted the noose skilfully as she sunk, whimpering, to the cold cobbles of the street.

In the gloom of the night, Mirabelle could at last put a name to the strange fire that burned in the peculiar eyes: Madness.

The rain had stopped at last.


End file.
